


open your eyes again

by sugarvixx



Category: VIXX
Genre: Gen, Herbalist Ravi, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25768234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarvixx/pseuds/sugarvixx
Summary: “2 more were dug up yesterday,”“You joking?”“Of course I’m not! There are holes in the ground. When they dug it up, the bodies are gone,”“Nah, of course the bodies are gone! Bodies rot in the ground!”“Yeah but here’s the thing. They’re the fresh ones! They shouldn’t have been THAT rotten that there’s nothing left anymore!”A silence, before a hushed whisper is heard.“...How fresh?”
Kudos: 1





	open your eyes again

**Author's Note:**

> hi, this work is in the line-up for my spooktober series project. however, today's heartbreaking news is too much for me and I don't feel motivated to finish what I started. therefore, I am posting whatever readable works I have in the draft unbeta'd. enjoy :)

“Thank you! Thank you!”

The old woman tearfully thanks him, patting his head lovingly.

“You don’t have to thank me, Mrs. Park, I’m just doing my job,” Wonshik looks up and smiles at her. His hands are busy dismantling the equipment he used for the session earlier, folding them and keeping them in his worn-out leather sling bag.

“This town is very blessed to have you here, Doctor,” Mrs. Park says holding his now free hands. Wonshik looks at her properly now, her daughter is standing at the opposite side of the bed, sobbing silently. Wonshik is glad the tears shed today are happy ones. Mrs. Park is finally fully healed.

He remembers the first time her 16 years old daughter came to him, begging him to save her mom’s life. 

“Please, you have to help me, doctor! My mom is dying!” she barged into his small office (which is also his house), startling him who was lifting a tray of glasses of newly packaged medicines from the kitchen to be put on the shelves and dragged him to their house.

Wonshik was very shocked to see Mrs. Park in a very worrying state. Her body was thin and weak and she was coughing blood. It’s not something common but it’s not something very new either. Wonshik decided to supervise her and take her under his care and finally, after 3 months of treatments and a month of follow up, she is now fully recovered.

“Remember to always keep an eye on Mrs. Park, especially on what she eats. If there’s any discomfort or if Mrs. Park experiences any pain, you will have to inform me,” Wonshik reminds and the young girl nods, understanding.

“Thanks again, doctor,”

\--

On his way home, Wonshik decides to stop by a small bar and have a drink there. Upon entering it, he is greeted by the owner who is standing behind the bar, “Oh, hello! Doctor! How can I help you?” The loud voice of the owner catches the attention of some customers there, making them turn their heads to his way for a moment before resuming whatever they were doing earlier. Some of them curtly nod at him and he nods back politely.

“I’ll have the usual, please. Thank you,” Wonshik replies and sits in an empty seat in the far right.

It has been 5 years since he earned the town’s only physician slash herbalist title and he is still not used to the attention and nice treatment he is getting. Since it’s not a big town, almost everywhere he goes, people will recognize him. He is treated like a freaking celebrity! People smile at him, greet him, talk about him within his hearing range. “He’s like a wizard, everything he touches can be cured,” “A physician, herbalist, a gentleman, and handsome at that, where can you find someone as perfect as him?” every time he heard the variation of those, he’d feel tingles in his whole body, head to toe. It’s all too different, too new. He doesn’t think he deserves the praises. But statistically, he is holding a 99% cure rate in this town (1% because of that one time where the town is plagued with 2 months drought, it was hard for him to look for the freshest and the most suitable herbs for his medicine recipe so he had to do some try and error with the recipes and he ended up giving a different kind of medicine to help delay the effect of the sickness and not cure it).

Wonshik sits down and opens up his journal, writing up the updates from his last session with Mrs. Park. Two men are sitting at the table behind, talking with each other a little bit too loud that it reaches him and perks his interest. So he eavesdrops on them.

“2 more were dug up yesterday,”

“You joking?”

“Of course I’m not! There are holes in the ground. When they dug it up, the bodies are gone,” 

“Nah, of course the bodies are gone! Bodies rot in the ground!”

“Yeah but here’s the thing. They’re the fresh ones! They shouldn’t have been THAT rotten that there’s nothing left anymore!”

A silence, before a hushed whisper is heard.

“...How fresh?”

“Here’s your order, Doctor!” The bartender said, putting his drink in front of him with a clink. Wonshik almost jumps out of his seat, surprised.

“Ah, thanks,” the bartender then smiles and leaves him alone. Wonshik tries to listen back to the conversation behind him but the men have started a discourse on which drink tastes best with fried potato wedges.

Bodies… Fresh bodies… Dug up...

Wonshik doesn’t realize that he’s zoning out until he feels a heavy stare from his left.

He turns around and sees the owner sitting on the seat next to him, staring at him.  
“You okay? You are spacing out,”

Wonshik clears his throat and lets out a small laugh.

“I’m okay, I was thinking about something,”

“Ah, doing genius things, I can’t relate,” Wonshik rolls his eyes playfully at that and laughs along with him.

He really wants to know more about whatever the men behind him were talking about. He’s just so curious, and curiosity is not best friends with Wonshik. He has been killing curiosities as far as he knows, it doesn’t sit right with him until he finds the answer to something. However, interrupting them and talking with them suddenly is too rude in his opinion. He contemplates asking them about it but he knows he can’t do it without being ashamed of himself. Especially if it turns out not as serious as he thinks it is.

And then he looks at Mr. Yoon, the owner who is sitting next to him. He laughs at his own stupidity. Yeah, he has the biggest gossiper in town sitting next to him right now, what is holding him back? Stupid.

“Hey, Mr. Yoon, have you heard the rumors?” Wonshik tries.

“Hm? About what?” 

“You know… about the 2 holes in the ground,” Wonshik dances around the topic praying that he gets the keyword right.

He sees Mr. Yoon’s eyes widen before he lets out a dramatic gasp. Maybe he is a genius after all.

“It’s scary! And creepy!”

“Why? What actually happened?”

Mr. Yoon scoots closer to him, lowering his voice.

“Apparently, someone found two fresh graves being dug up this morning. They thought some boys were messing around but when they went down to check, the bodies were gone! Do you know that they have been hiding the news from us but the same thing happened last month too! They found 1 dug up grave at the different graveyard on the hill. They’ve checked with the family members too to see if someone went out of their mind and dug the bodies up but nothing. I feel sad for them too. I can imagine the worry when a family member is missing, but a dead one? Terrifying.”

There’s a small pause before Mr. Yoon makes his voice lower. Lower than before.

“Some say they may have risen from the dead,” he says before shivering exaggeratingly. “I’m locking my doors tonight,”

Wonshik feels chills down his spine. 

He walks home silently. Shutting the door behind him, he takes off his jacket and puts down his work bag. 

Going further inside, he smells the faint pleasant smell of lemon balm he brewed this morning wafted from the kitchen or his “humble laboratory” as he calls it. Going through his to-do list in his head, he checks the equipment and the ingredients stock as usual.

Hmmm, everything’s good.

Suddenly, he heard a thud coming from his basement.

Turning his head towards the locked door leading to the basement, he stops whatever he is doing.

Okay, what was that?

Robbers? But how did they get down there? The only way to the basement is through this door. And it’s locked. Wonshik checks the lock, it still is.

Wonshik gulps. He keeps all of his medical books in the basement. There are his secret recipe books as well. He has to check. What if it’s a thief? Someone might want to steal his findings. Rats? Twice as worse. To find out his precious books’ value reduced into merely some rat food? No thanks.

He grabs one of the big firewood near the fireplace and gropes for the key on top of the kitchen cabinet. Thanks to his long legs, he can simply reach the top of the cabinets by slightly standing on his tiptoes.

Opening the door, he sees the staircase leading to the darkness of the basement. And it is only now that he regrets he decided to put the light switch at the end of the stairs below and not up here.

“Hello?” 

Reaching towards the end of the staircase, he turns on the light and immediately looks around the space.

His eyes fall on the mug that fell on the floor and rolled into the middle of the room because he remembers he put the mug on the table behind the stairs before.

Walking towards it, he crouches down and picks it up. He hears the faint growl from his back.

He turns around and walks towards the noise coming from behind the stairs. The growl gets louder.

The closer he is, the clearer it becomes. He grips the firewood in his hands tighter.

He’s a few feet away from the source and the growlings get more and more aggressive.

“Oh god,”

The sight before him is horrifying. Horrendous, grotesque, rotten, white-eyed beast twitching and growling uncontrollably. It seems to notice his presence, its head is lifted and looking at him. Its dirty hands clawed towards Wonshik. It tries to leap and reach Wonshik, but the chain attached to its right leg is pulled taut, stopping its movement.

Wonshik lets go of the firewood in his hand and gasps, nearly in tears.

“Oh god! You’re awake! It works!”

The creature continues growling and clawing the air, ignoring Wonshik’s amusement.

Finally! Finally, it works! Wonshik runs towards the small safe at the other end of the room, leaving the monster growling on its own and opens it up. He grabs the clear bottle filled with lilac colored liquid. Kissing the bottle a few times, the liquid sloshing around in his violent grip. 

“People have started talking. I’ll go crazy if I have to wait another month to see the result.”

He failed once before. After injecting the formula in the body, it convulsed violently and stayed unmoving for two weeks. That’s when he realized he made a mistake. He did some more research and tweaked his initial recipes. This time, he thought he better be prepared so he brought in two bodies yesterday. It looks like the other one will have to be in the fridge longer.

Wonshik claps and jumps on his own, celebrating. Laughing out loud.

“My reincarnation formula works!”

Well, it is behaving a little bit weird but it works!


End file.
